Blue Light / Red Light

I tend to stay away pop medicine.  I get very earnest medical / health suggestions from a ton of folks at the office, for example, much of which pegs my BS-meter.

On the other hand, in this week's IT Safety email, there was a comment about avoiding light, esp. blue light, to be able to sleep better: "Blue lights, such as those from a cell phone as they trigger the body’s wake cycle"

Which made my BS meter quiver, so I decided to do some research.

Unfortunately, there seems to be some reputable scientific basis for this idea. For example, Harvard Medical School (http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Health_Letter/2012/May/blue-light-has-a-dark-side/):

'Even dim light can interfere with a person's circadian rhythm and melatonin secretion. A mere eight lux—a level of brightness exceeded by most table lamps and about twice that of a night light—has an effect, notes Stephen Lockley, a Harvard sleep researcher. Light at night is part of the reason so many people don't get enough sleep, says Lockley, and researchers have linked short sleep to increased risk for depression, as well as diabetes and cardiovascular problems.

While light of any kind can suppress the secretion of melatonin, blue light does so more powerfully. Harvard researchers and their colleagues conducted an experiment comparing the effects of 6.5 hours of exposure to blue light to exposure to green light of comparable brightness. The blue light suppressed melatonin for about twice as long as the green light and shifted circadian rhythms by twice as much (3 hours vs. 1.5 hours).'

Light in general is a problem, but some lighting — CFLs and tablet/phone backlights — have more blue wavelengths.

The Chicago Trib article linked below mentions an AMA policy that notes "exposure to excessive light at night, including extended use of various electronic media, can disrupt sleep or exacerbate sleep disorders, especially in children and adolescents."  It also notes:

'In May 2011, Swiss researchers at the University of Basel reported that subjects who spent time at night in front of an LED computer screen, as opposed to a screen emitting a variety of colors but little blue light, experienced "a significant suppression of the evening rise in endogenous melatonin and … sleepiness."'

So here's part of the "Uh-oh" moment here.

1. We tend to spend much of our evenings watching TV and hanging out on computers — all of which are LED screens.  We don't do it upstairs in bed, but sometimes that breaking away to actually go upstairs is delayed.  Unwinding? Or suppression of sleepiness?

2. In general we keep our room pretty dark.  But … our alarm clocks have blue LEDs on them.  They're great alarm clocks, but …

So maybe we can get around #2 with … hmm, some red gel/film over the clocks?  (I would truly hate to give up those clocks.)  

For #1, maybe we need to cut off use of computers at an earlier hour. Which would be painful in terms of recreation of choice, but might help us get more reliable sleep during the week.